The first two weeks of October were very busy for the Sales & Trading (S&T) Division. The team, led by a young man named Frank, worked with a quiet, focused energy that Arthur Vance admired. They were using his methods exactly as he had taught them.
The Operation Continues
The big stock operation to buy 10% of The Coca-Cola Company had begun. They started with the initial capital expenditure of $\$150,500$ that came from the Boeing income. Frank and his two assistants moved the money like water through a dozen different pipes. They didn't call the same broker twice in a day. They never placed an order larger than 200 shares. They bought stock in the first minute the market opened, in the slow hour before lunch, and in the final minute before the bell.
They were following Arthur's First Rule: Be Invisible.
Arthur watched the numbers every day, tracking every trade from a small ledger on his desk. He wasn't tracking the money; he was tracking the psychology of the market. He wanted to see how the big players—the other banks and investment houses—reacted to their buying.
After two weeks of this steady, quiet buying, the team had spent roughly $80,000 of the available capital. This spending bought them about 1.5% ownership of Coca-Cola. The stock price had moved only a fraction of a penny—a perfect result. The big investors still saw Coca-Cola as a boring stock facing a potential sugar problem.
At this point, the bank's financial picture for the stock operation was simple:
Income Earned (from Boeing): The initial $180,000 had funded all operations.
Capital Spent (on Coke Stock): Approximately $80,000.
Current Stock Value: The $\$80,000$ worth of stock was now valued at about $\$80,500$ on paper, meaning a small paper profit of $\$500$.
Available Capital for Buying: $70,500 (plus the small profit).
The operation was going well, but it was slow. To reach their 10% goal, they would need more capital soon.
The Strange Pattern
Then, Arthur noticed something strange in the trading data that broke his concentration.
He was looking at the price movement of the stock in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. The trading floor was usually quiet then. Arthur was watching a large sell order of 5,000 shares come into the market. A sale that big should make the stock price fall, even if only for a minute.
But it didn't.
As soon as the 5,000 shares hit the market, they were instantly bought up by a mix of smaller, separate orders. The price didn't fall at all; it held perfectly steady.
Arthur leaned back in his chair. This was not the normal reaction. When a large chunk of stock is sold, there is almost always a slight dip, a nervous shiver that runs through the market.
He decided it must be a fluke. But the next day, it happened again. A large block of shares was sold, and again, an immediate wave of quiet, small buying orders instantly soaked up the supply, preventing any price change.
Arthur spent the rest of the week running the numbers backward. He looked at every major transaction over the last two weeks.
"Mr. Thorne," Arthur said one evening, calling Elias into his office. "Look at this data."
Elias, who understood markets but didn't have Arthur's ability to read them like a clock, looked confused. "It looks like steady trading, Arthur. Nothing to worry about."
"Exactly," Arthur said, pointing at a graph showing trading volume. "It is too steady. Look here, and here, and here."
Arthur pointed out moments when a large bank—often the same rival bank that worked with Boeing—would sell a significant number of Coca-Cola shares. Immediately after those sales, the entire volume was swallowed up by dozens of small orders, spread out among different brokers.
"We are buying quietly, Elias," Arthur explained, his voice low. "But we are not the only ones. The fact that the stock price never moves down when a large block is sold means someone else is standing there with a large amount of cash, acting as a hidden shield."
"A hidden shield?"
"Yes. Someone else has seen the potential of this stock. They know about the sugar problem, and they know the stock is underpriced. And they are using the same quiet buying methods we are, but they are doing it with one main purpose: to stop the price from falling."
Arthur realized what was happening. This was not just another investor. This was a rival hunter.
If the rival bank was selling, and a new buyer was appearing, it meant this new buyer was smart enough to recognize a bargain when they saw one. They knew the fear of sugar rationing was making the stock cheap.
Arthur walked to the window, looking out at the city lights. He felt a thrill of true challenge, something he hadn't felt even when dealing with Boeing. The private deal was like a game of chess against a slow opponent. This new public market game was like a rapid game of poker against an unknown master.
"We have a problem," Arthur finally said. "It's not that the price is moving up. The problem is that the price is not moving at all. If the stock price stays flat, we will spend a fortune trying to buy our 10%."
The price needed to fall so they could buy more shares for the same money. But this hidden buyer was preventing that drop.
"We have to identify who is willing to spend so much money just to hold the price steady," Arthur said. "They are protecting their own buying, just like we are, but their methods are sharper."
Arthur turned to Elias. "The Research Division has a new job. Forget the Top 50 companies for now. Their only mission is to find the person or group buying these large blocks of Coca-Cola stock. They need to find out who is building the shield and why they are so eager to keep this stock price from moving."
Elias felt a cold dread mixed with excitement. "You think this is a competitor?"
"It is," Arthur confirmed. "And they are very, very good. We have to beat them to the finish line, or we will pay double for every share we need."
The stock operation was no longer a simple execution. It had turned into a hidden war. The $\$70,500$ left in their capital was about to be used as a weapon, not just a tool for buying. The stakes were suddenly much higher. Arthur knew he had to figure out his rival's weakness before the market made its next big move.